//------------------------------// // Mentor // Story: Triptych // by Estee //------------------------------// She was always there. On one level, Twilight knew that there had been a period of her life which had come before the Solar alicorn had found her, which had happened just after she'd I don't want to remember and she acknowledged those years spent in fillyhood. But on another level, it felt as if the Princess had been there all along. Was always there. Look into the equation which defined the world, a near-infinity of variables which resisted being defined at all costs, and the Princess was the constant. Search back across the centuries and at any moment in time, you would find a gentle smile. That comforting voice, the warmth... she was always warm The mission had overturned just about everything. Beliefs had been shattered, with definitions changed and new entries forcing their way into every checklist. The mission was over and things were still breaking. Because the Princess was... always there. Not for every moment in Twilight's life, certainly not during so many of the worst (and there had been a few when she had dreaded hearing that voice, knowing she'd gotten everything wrong and the words which would tell her so were but seconds away). But she could always be sought. In a crisis, Twilight could try to reach the palace (and when that ongoing crisis was loneliness, she had never made the attempt, because to seek out the Princess for such a small thing felt as if she would have been abusing the honor of the student-teacher relationship). A constant, the constant and even when the Nightmare had appeared, even after seeing the alicorn hit by Chrysalis' attack... even then, the disruption had felt temporary. The Princess had been in the Hall. But it hadn't been the gentle voice, the comforting presence creating the inner faith that everything would be all right. The Princess had attacked, and a voice which was not quite her own had casually spoken of murder. It's not her. She doesn't act like this. We finish the mission. We come back, and everything's okay. She tells us the world is stable again, because that's what her being there means. She makes the world stable. Without her, there would be no world at all... She would find the Princess, and definitions would stabilize. Spinning variables, whirling thoughts, the desperation, the terror -- it would all stop. That was what the Princess did. It was what the Princess was for. But Twilight was racing through the hallways of the palace, pausing just long enough at open doorways to frantically glance into rooms, searching, and the Princess wasn't there. She was chasing a pony who might be able to run faster than anything in the world, and the palace was huge. Twilight had never been in every part of the Solar wing. Part of that had come from avoiding boredom: she'd never felt any need to visit the areas where the daily bureaucracies of government were processed. Other sections required permission: somepony had to bring her into the armory, and there were document collections where Twilight was only permitted to remain while under constant supervision, just in case she decided to take most of it home. A few places were expressly forbidden: storerooms of confiscated devices which nopony was supposed to touch. And the Royal Bedroom was a place of sacred privacy: she had stood outside its door, waited for her teacher -- but she'd never gone inside. She was vaguely aware that there were levels beneath the palace: she'd seen ponies coming up from them, and had somehow never inquired as to just what was down there. She was sure there were rooms she didn't know about, entire towers which she'd never explored. And then there was the Lunar wing, which had only been reopened after the Return. During Twilight's student years, it had been walled off, and draperies had blocked every window. Half of the palace was simply shut down, and -- she'd never asked why. There were stories: lingering magic from some tremendous fight, something which couldn't be countered. It was unsafe to enter. It was impossible to tear down, lest whatever curse lingered there escape into Canterlot. And so it was simply closed off, locked away, with the lost half fully visible from the outside while nopony ever asked why... Coordinator's dead. That thought occasionally rose from the groove. She didn't know what to do with it. She wasn't sorry, she couldn't mourn, and she didn't know if she was supposed to hate herself for it. She galloped past a midnight-shaded pegasus and the startled Lunar guard tried calling out to her, something about having narrowed down where the caravan currently was: she ignored the mare and just kept going. She was starting to open doors, she was wondering what she would do when she encountered the first security spell, she just kept galloping and the sweat was starting to build in her coat as endless marble passed beneath her pounding hooves, art and sculpture blurring, but the gallop was all she had. She couldn't find the focus required to fly, and she knew the Princess hadn't teleported: her own feel would have informed her of that exit. All she knew was that the Princess was somewhere in the Solar wing, and she was starting to realize just how little of it she'd actually been within. But the Princess had said she would be there -- -- the Princess wasn't Honesty. (She had been a normal pony.) And wasn't that how so many still saw her? In the deep past, the Elements had existed and Discord had been beaten with them: therefore, somepony needed to have wielded the set. One pony, and if that pony had managed to use every Element, then it followed that the Princess embodied every last one of the virtues. You looked at the Princess and you saw Honesty. Except that she had never borne that element, and the mare who'd worn that necklace had been a killer. It meant the Princess could lie. So she didn't have to stay in the Solar wing. She didn't have to stay in the palace. She could have stepped out onto a balcony and flown away. She could be anywhere in Canterlot and I She was running. The narrow rib cage was heaving. Part of her was wondering if her hooves were making too much noise: it was almost impossible to move silently on marble, not while at full gallop, and she just barely remembered that the forced creation of position-betraying sounds had originally been meant as a defense against invaders. Her teacher could hear her and move. Calling out might produce the same result. I can't find her, I need to find her, I need to hear her and not whatever that was, whoever that was, it wasn't her She needed the Princess. She needed her as much as she'd ever needed anypony in her entire life. She needed to be told that everything would be okay. And the Princess wasn't there. She wasn't Magic, and Magic betrayed them. She wasn't Honesty, and Honesty would commit murder. Who was she? The Princess could lie -- but she'd been speaking to Luna. The one pony in all the world who had to be capable of finding her in a hurry, because crises generally weren't something which arrived by previously-arranged schedule. That had to mean she was still somewhere in the Solar wing. But there were portions which Twilight had never entered, couldn't enter, and the sweat was flowing through her coat and her wings just felt like they were constantly jostling against her sides and her thoughts kept going around and around, carving the groove until it felt as if it would reach bone and then she saw the strange light coming through the gap at the edge of the slightly-open door. She stopped. (It took a few seconds, and she initially wound up going past the thing.) Slowly, as silently as she could, approached the ajar portal. Tried to pull up the map of the palace in her head, hoping, trying to remember where she was -- There's more to the palace than rooms, towers, and halls. She knew where the door went. But the light... she'd never seen anything like it. Not Moon's light, or anything made by a field or device. She didn't know what had created it. The space on the other side knew but one kind of light, knew it at every hour under Sun... We're under Moon. She had never been there under Moon. She couldn't think of anypony who might have stood within that space after Sun's lowering. Perhaps only one pony ever had, year after year. And for the place which stood counter to it in the Lunar wing, the only way for there to have been that much light would be if it was occupied. Please be there. It wasn't a prayer, for there was nothing to hear. It was simply hope, and hope itself was pain. Twilight's corona ignited, just long enough for her field to tug at the door. (More of the strange light streamed into the hall, discolored the marble while dulling the gold.) Forced herself to step outside into the Solar Courtyard. Officially, no matter how many such spaces had been designed into the overall plan, the place had but two Courtyards. They had originally been meant to host various kinds of festivals: the column-bordered space was meant to be filled with tables and benches, tents and booths, music and those who would dance to its beat. But that had been the intent during the years when Canterlot's population was so very much smaller, when it was possible to get just about everypony in the city into one Courtyard. The centuries had created a certain degree of overflow, and so most of the celebrations had eventually moved out into the city itself. But the Courtyards still saw use. They could host a fairly large gathering. Ancient spells ensured that the acoustics were always excellent. And when the Princesses needed to speak directly with the press, reporters from all publications would gather within those spaces. They would take notes, and a few of them would even write about what had actually been said. Those of Murdocks would listen, because how could you distort the words if you didn't know what they had originally been? And they would do all of it under open sky, beneath a sight which might not exist anywhere else in the world. For the Courtyards had their own workings, things which had been enhanced through centuries of attunement to the same ponies, and those were the spells which created illumination. In the Lunar Courtyard... no matter where Moon was along its path or where it might be in its cycle, the orb would be seen as coming in over the eastern ridge, full and bright with every crater perfectly visible. At least, that was how it existed at night. There were times when Luna needed to address the assembled corps during the day, and those occasions found the reporters staring at her through lenses of enchanted quartz which seemed to swirl with smoke. Eclipses were an artifact of the sisters' generation, a side effect from Discord's control. The randomness of those movements would sometimes place Sun and Moon in the sky at the same time -- or bring one in front of the other. It was something nopony else alive had ever seen until the siblings combined their efforts to return the phenomenon as a gift to Luna for the second anniversary of the Return, and another had been created on the following year. (Twilight tended to spend the occasion torn between the need for astronomical and magical studies, and had finally asked Pinkie to read off numbers on the former.) It was a celebration of renewed unity, and the only way to see a true one was to be in exactly the right place when the most powerful coronas in Equestria began to ignite. But for any press conference in the Lunar Courtyard which somehow needed to take place during the day... that was when the illusionary version would hold sway. By contrast, the Solar Courtyard operated under dawnlight. Regardless of the true hour, Sun would always just be rising, the sky filled with the myriad hues which only existed at the first touch of the cycle's rebirth. For all the time Twilight had known her, it was like that whenever the Princess was in the Courtyard -- but that had only been during the day. Press conferences held at night used the Great Hall, supposedly in order to get everypony out again all the faster. She had never seen the Courtyard active at night, hadn't even known it could be... It was. The illusion did not have Sun coming in over the eastern ridge. Sun was directly overhead, hanging far above the exact center of the space, and Sun wasn't right. All of its light had been tilted towards grey, something which seemed to simultaneously illuminate and dim. Sun just -- stayed there, without moving, and it never shifted by a single degree for all of their time in the Courtyard. It was slightly cold, and Twilight didn't understand that. She'd looked at the weather schedule: the night was supposed to be a warm one. But there was a faint chill in the air, washing through the grey, pushing down on the scattered benches which hadn't quite been cleared away from the last conference. And it was more than that, for the workings in the Courtyard had been present for so long as to have their own resonance. During the day, it was renewal. But at night... Twilight shivered, tried to force the regret away, found another emotion waiting beneath it, couldn't quite figure out what it was. Pushed herself forward, towards where the white mare stood beneath the greyed orb, silently staring into the darkness which existed beyond the illusion. In time, she would go through every astronomy text and dictionary she could find in the Canterlot Archives, delving further back into dusty centuries with every passing shelf, and it would only be in the very oldest of them that she would finally find the words midnight Sun. But then and there, it was the Princess, something she had never seen before, and cold. Cold, when the Princess was always warm. She'd noticed that early in her tutelage. The radiance. Never enough to be uncomfortable, and it never seemed to appear during the hottest part of the year. But to trot by the Princess' side on a chill autumn day, taken away from the isolation and mounting slow torture of the Gifted School to spend time with her teacher... With Luna, when the younger was happy, there would often be a pleasant coolness: the first touch of wonder-chilled air after escaping from summer heat. (If that particular alicorn was angry, frost would creep across glass and eventually, it would be impossible to take a step without slipping on ice.) For the Princess... it was warm. A younger Twilight had trotted next to her, moving towards a period of respite, comforted by spring in the heart of fall. The Princess was warm. Always. This isn't... Her mane wasn't flowing. The semi-tangible tail was completely still, and the light had sent both of them towards grey. As if Discord had inverted her. Perhaps that had been the intent all along, to have her standing under false Sun and silently staring out into endless night. It was impossible to see any other part of the city from here, and Ponyville was too far away. No lights from other buildings, and there didn't seem to be any stars. She was so tall. The largest pony known to exist. To be near her as a filly had been for Twilight to instinctively understand that she was in the presence of something greater than herself and even as she'd aged, that feeling had remained. The sensation of being near something stronger. More powerful, more knowledgeable, something protective. Even as a young adult, she still felt like a child when she was near the Princess, and size was part of that. Like she was an infant being sheltered by her mother. Twilight was fully aware of that vast size as she approached: it was impossible to ignore it. But for the first time, she also felt the weight. The sheer mass which was being shifted on every slow breath. The relentless pull of gravity against the body, and the way the white head had surrendered a degree of dip to the struggle. The Princess didn't move as Twilight came up behind her. Just stared out into the dark, eyes half-closed. Breathing. Existing. And Twilight reached within herself, tried to find words, for it seemed that she had to be the one who spoke first. There would be a sentence which would prove everything which had taken place in the Hall was an aberration, or part of some brilliant long-term plan. A single utterance that made everything all right again. She needed that sentence to exist, and so she desperately tried to figure out what it was. But before Twilight could reach her, face her, with the little mare still seven body lengths behind -- the Princess spoke first. "We called them chaos children." The words had been steady, even. The white back curved under the pain. And Twilight couldn't move. "The barricade points..." The huge torso expanded from the breath, contracted again. "The majority of them were occupied by one race. All unicorns, all earth ponies, and there was no real way to reach the pegasi. Not that we wanted to see them, because a pegasus sighting usually meant a raid. But... one race, so much of the time. Some of the largest barricades would have a broader population, but even then, mixed families were hardly ever seen. Almost impossible. We told ourselves that we were struggling to survive when we were mostly just waiting to die. Or go insane. So many lost that fight at the end, and death was kinder. And there had to be so many children, because ponies died every day and the only way there would be anypony at all was if just about every mare gave of themselves, every moon of their lives, almost as soon as they were able. If you couldn't contribute anything else to the barricade, you could be pregnant." Stark words, and all the more for being so soft. Matter-of-fact. Reading statistics from a chart. This is how it is. This is how it was. "We'd lost so much," the Princess quietly continued. (She hadn't looked at Twilight and on that night, under midnight Sun, she never would.) "All most of us were was a need to survive and the fear that we wouldn't. Nopony knew what it had truly been like before he came. We'd forgotten ourselves. We'd forgotten how our own blood worked. And so sometimes, in a barricade that was all one race -- there would be a child born of another. A chaos child, because there was no other explanation. And some barricades would let those children stay. They wouldn't be trusted, because how could you ever trust something created by him? But they remained with the barricade, because those ponies were trying to appease him. Hoping that keeping one of his would make things easier. It never did. And the rest... would see such a foal -- and give it back to the storm. Sending on." She needed to speak. She needed words more than she had ever needed anything, she needed to find something which would make it stop, which would turn the huge white mare into the Princess again, and nothing came. Another breath. The purple eyes closed a little more. The attack had broken the world. The next soft words ground the fragments beneath giant hooves. "Do you remember that? I've -- been afraid to ask what you remember..." No. No. No. "That's where it started," the Princess quietly continued. "We tried to stop it. The word was spread about what was really happening, once we understood that at all. But some ponies... they just kept going. Even when it was a crime, when it was murder. So we -- tried to rechannel it. Present another option. It's why even now, anypony can leave a foal at a hospital or police station, and there would never be a single question asked. We thought it was better to have orphans than corpses. But... it never completely died out, did it? We sinned from fear, then we sinned from hate, and now... now they're here. The true children of chaos." The huge head slowly shook. The giant body shivered in the cold. "He said... as a group, we could be symbols," the white mare told the trembling form behind her. "Of what could happen when we all worked together. But then Luna and I changed. And then we were symbols, or that's what we were supposed to be. Trotting images of unity. Every race could see us as one of their own, because we were every race. That was the dream..." The laugh was that of the Princess. But there was no joy in it, and so it was horror. "The reality was that most ponies saw freaks. Something which had to be stopped. And a number knew we'd changed, because we had been to some barricade points before, and then returned to them after. They saw how strong we were. Barely any understanding of how to make it all work, hardly anything approaching control -- but strong. And when strength was seen as the most important thing... when strength kept you alive..." Please, please don't laugh again... She did. A sharp, bitter bark. "That's when it started." Her head dipped a little more, and a cold breeze blew across both their backs. "Even during the Unification, when we were trying to bring all the old barricades together, it was happening. We had followers by then, because we'd won. Ponies following whoever was at the front of the herd. But still, there were those who understood that we'd changed. That change was possible. And they tried. So many tried, even when they saw that when something did happen, the lucky ones were those who died quickly. They wanted the power. They didn't understand the price, and the ones who figured that part out -- didn't see it as a price at all. As long as ponies knew that we had changed, that it was possible to change, even with the only means we knew of lost... they would try. For the sake of power. Because it was us, and they would decide it needed to be them. So the world had to forget. But even then, even when so many ponies knew... they never did what Gentle Arrival did. They never broke the last walls. Because we brought them all together, as best we could. We almost forced ponies to live together -- well, Luna did." The white ears briefly twitched. "Her dominion, after all. And in time, living together, coming to know each other a little better... it was easier. It took a while, though. There were fights, and worse. Attack after attack. But even then, a unicorn was a unicorn." Her eyes completely closed, as Twilight trembled and shook. Opened again, just a little. Enough to see shadows. "And now... now, there can be a horn, and there can be a corona, and then there's something in the blood. What will their children be? Does this stop here, with normal foals born from their unions? Or will it lurk in the blood, surfacing every so often? A race created from the combination of races, appearing at random. Either of those results, and Equestria goes on much like before, even if it takes centuries to stop the attacks, and fearful, hateful ponies sending on if their infant seems the least bit different. But if hybrids only produce hybrids... and their children have children, across the centuries... what are we, in a thousand years? Is there a true pegasus left? A single pony on the continent who can perform the techniques of weather control? A few clouds broken, one storm moderated. And what is everypony else? What would our magic be? A thousand years, and who are we?" Which was when Twilight found her voice, and desperation pulled out the words. "We'll be okay. Whatever we are, we'll be all right. New magic isn't bad magic. We'll find a way --" "-- and there's another aspect to that, a current one," the Princess harshly cut in. "Gentle Arrival wants to work. Every time I say no produces at least one dead foal. Every time I say yes not only creates the chance for a live hostage, it accelerates the process. One more hybrid into the population. And the ones who already exist... it's not their fault. To imprison them for sins which were never theirs -- to prevent them from having children... you know Zephyra would have been the one to bring that up. She would have led the discussion, and she would have kept it going until we understood every implication of the decision. But she wouldn't have done it. She could be so brutal -- but there was more to her than that. We all saw it, Luna more than anypony. Brutal -- but not genocidal. You know who would have had the argument for life, and he would have won. But you..." She snorted. "'New magic isn't bad magic.' You would say that." "Princess --" It was something less than a whisper. The words were barely audible, nearly absorbed by chill air, and Twilight would spend so much of the next moons wishing she'd never heard them at all. "-- I hated you." No. No. No. No. "I hated you more than I had ever hated anypony," the Princess softly told her. "Because I'd realized how much of it was you. How far back it truly went. Who was responsible. I didn't piece that part together until just before the end -- but I did work it out. So many wanted the power -- but with you, it was jealousy. It should have been you. That's what you told yourself, over and over, until you decided to make it be you. That spell, Luna's mark, all of the switching... that was less than a night, because everything started to fall apart as soon as the time came to lower Moon. But then you just kept right on going..." She was holding the resonance of regret back, if just barely through her increasing confusion and horror. But that other factor... Bitter again, "You took your time about an ending. You were determined to be the last, or whatever was pretending to be you wanted that. And it thought it was you, so maybe that was part of it. They told me it was almost over, and then you just hung on. Still waiting for an opportunity. It gave me time. Time to be angry. And I started thinking about everything you'd taught us. Including some of what you said not to do. Never to send a spell directly from theory to horn -- well, I couldn't test it, could I?" Another laugh, and Twilight's ears flattened against her skull. Failed to hold back the thoughts within. "Luna found out what I was considering." The pause was mercilessly brief. "She wanted to know how I'd thought of such an abomination. She still calls it that. And I told her -- that it was you. I wanted to believe it, that we get some of our creativity from you. Or that I tapped into everything which had been there when we changed, everything which would have hated what you became. Not that it really understood, or could remember. But my friend... I think he would have hated what you were at the end. Maybe it was all of our hate that made me think of it. So I got away from her, when it was almost over. I went to you --" Stopped. Took another breath. All four knees bent, straightened again. "You're quiet," the Princess observed. "You're usually not this quiet." The next thought was the second most terrifying one of her life. I don't know who you're talking to. "I..." The Princess sighed. Waited. I know you're old, the oldest pony in the world. But you've always been in the now. You've always been here with me. There for me. You have to be the Princess. You have to be you. It was a question she hadn't meant to ask. It was also something she'd dearly wanted to say since before the mission had begun, it was something for the now, and it wasn't anything close to the nightmare which had been woven under greyed Sun. It let the words slip out. "Why didn't you teach me anything about being an alicorn? Why did you just send me back?" Another, softer sigh, with mane and tail now starting to show hints of murky brown. "Are they still alive?" "...what?" "Are they still alive?" The repetition seemed to be meant as an answer. "Can you look upon their true faces every day? Trot at their sides? Feel them next to you?" She didn't understand. She didn't want to understand. "...yes." "And I'm supposed to take you away from that," the Princess harshly stated. "Steal what time you have with them, in exchange for classes. They're alive. Share that with them." A blaze of gold and agony shot across her mind's raging storm. "...Pinkie nearly died." The white head dipped lower. "Yes," the Princess softly said. "Our laughter died first..." And then shot up. She was staring directly at that greyed Sun now, looking into its light without pain. Not at Twilight, never Twilight during that horrible meeting, but her neck muscles were tight and there was vibration along every raised tendon. As if she was forcing herself not to turn. And all the while, that second resonance continued to strengthen. "I figured it out in the end," she harshly declared. "It took your lifetime, but I realized what had happened. That's part of why I went to you. But do you know something? To this day, I don't know why. There was hate, and that was part of it. But in the end, when I cast the spell for the first time, the only time..." The browning tail lashed, hit her own left flank with a solid thud. "You were the last, and I hated what you'd become -- but there was something else there once. Somepony who came with us, the last pony to join, the one who made it all work. Somepony who believed in the last chance. Somepony who was my friend. The pony who found a way for us to say goodbye to our mother, long after she had already died. So in the end, I didn't know if I was trying to punish you. Or if I was trying to save you. I still don't." No. No. No. No. No. Shaking. Every part of the little body shaking, she couldn't stop, her thoughts were crashing into each other like waves going into an iceberg which was rising from below... "And I didn't even know if it worked." A little shrug, followed by that bitter, Tartarus-freed laugh. "All I could do was look for you. There were so many times when I was almost convinced I'd found you. There were commonalities, or at least I told myself there were. The greatest caster of that generation, somepony in love with magic, with its possibilities: that was a good place to start. But it never reached the end. All I could do was keep looking, and wonder if I'd fooled myself. Just told myself that something had happened at all. Because I'd never cast it before, and I've never cast that abomination since -- but I told myself that of all the ponies in the world, you deserved it. And there's even two ways to mean that! But I looked, and -- I really thought it was you this time. Everything that happened on that first day -- it almost had to be you. Everything felt like it was right. The few prophecies I'd been able to assemble, with that talent so rare and the spells almost completely unreliable... every sign, with the stars getting close to their alignment, the last hope for the last chance turned out to be you and you were..." A slow breath. "...closed off. Isolated. Dismissive of contact and fearing it at the same time. The last hope, somepony who almost made me give up all hope, and..." More softly, with the muscle tension beginning to ease and a smile slowly working its way across the white muzzle, "...you did it. You freed her. And I thought it had to be you, maybe it would work this time because the Elements were active, you had friends around you, and you were so much like us. Not knowing anything real about the world outside your little barricade of books and fear, sheltering yourself from the chaos until you got kicked out and had to take your lessons from everypony around you..." The right forehoof came up. Went down again, and the Courtyard shook. Benches jumped. Columns vibrated. "Because I told you," the Princess whispered. "In the last minutes of your life. I looked into the red of that thing's eyes, and tried to speak to the pony who'd been trapped at its core. I told you, just before you escaped to the shadowlands, and it felt like I'd reached you because it had no reason to scream -- that if you wanted the power so badly, you could just keep trying over and over again until you got it right." Her body shook. Her mind felt as if it was trying to tear itself apart. And the only word she could use shattered. "P-p-prin -- Celestia --" The oldest mare in the world, body bent under the weight of the centuries, looking at false Sun as her window to what no longer existed, said five words. And then it was the most terrifying thought, the one which told her that she'd known what was going on all along, that she'd been aware of exactly who Celestia had been speaking with, it combined with the words and the suffocating resonance of self-loathing and told her what she was and it sent her racing out of the Courtyard and through the marble halls until she collapsed into an alcove and wept, wept until no more tears could come, and a friendly Guard found her, treated her as if she was his youngest daughter, brought her to the others, left so that they could surround her and comfort her and try to fix what whatever was so horribly wrong. But they couldn't. She couldn't even bring herself to tell them, and so let them believe in a lie of omission. Thinking that it was nothing more than the stress of the mission finding one last outlet, for nothing would ever fix it. She simply let them comfort her as best they could, pretended she felt better, got into the air carriage for the trip to the tree and home and a stability which might never exist again. The words pursued her. They chased each other in an endless loop. She isolated herself on the first day back, claimed to be straightening up the library. But the work wasn't enough. Nothing could provide true distraction. And whenever her concentration lapsed, that was when Celestia's words came back and shattered her life again. The words which meant she didn't have a life of her own. The words which said she wasn't supposed to be alive at all. "Leave me alone, Star Swirl."